Generic processes and devices for production of plastic containers are known in the state of the art (e.g., DE 199 26 329 A1). A tube of plasticized plastic material is extruded into a molding device with one end of the tube is sealed by bonding. This tube is expanded by generation of a pneumatic pressure gradient which acts on the tube and is applied for the purpose of formation of the container to the molding wall of the molding device having two opposite molding tools. The plastic container is charged under sterile conditions inside the molding device, by a suitable charging mandrel. After the charging mandrel has been removed, the plastic container is then hermetically sealed and a predetermined head geometry is formed by two container shaping jaws movable toward each other by hydraulic drive means to a closed position and away from each other over the same path in the opposite direction to an open position for formation of the plastic container itself for subsequent storage of the fluid.
The head geometries generated by the two controlled head jaws also regularly comprise the neck component of the plastic container, including ampules. The containers may be opened by a point of separation closed by a head piece for a fluid removal process as soon as the head piece is separated by a toggle component at the point of separation. Thus, the headpiece is removed from the plastic container itself.
Processes such as these have been disclosed in a number of embodiments, and are widely employed in packaging systems for liquid or paste products.
The hydraulic drive systems regularly used in practical applications for the respective movement of the shaping tools create problems in that any leakage may result in fouling by the stored fluid. Such fouling leads to problems, particularly when the shaping machines are used for plastic containers in pharmaceutical applications, in the area of foods and in medical technology in general. The maintenance effort is also increased. The hydraulic drive systems often do not reach the cycle times desired or low cycle times work to the detriment of precise positioning of the shaping tools for container shaping. In the case of the known production devices, the blow molding, charging and sealing process are carried out stationarily in temporal sequence in one production machine, so that correspondingly long production times are required for the entire production process.
Conventional rotation plastic blow molding machines (see e.g., EP-B-0 921 932, and EP-B-0 858 878) customarily have a wheel mounted on a base frame for rotation about a horizontal axis of rotation. They are employed to overcome the disadvantage indicated, and in particular, to achieve faster cycle times in production of plastic containers. The wheel contains a frame which supports several molding stations, each station having a pair of mold frames for mounting of a pair on molding halves. The mold frames may be moved between a mold opening point at which the mold halves are positioned a certain distance from each other to receive an extruded plastic parison and a mold closing position in which the mold halves form a closed cavity in which the parison is blow molded. However, the blow-molded containers can neither be charged nor sealed in a sterile manner by these rotation plastic blow molding machines of the state of the art. Accordingly, they are suitable only for production of empty containers which are provided at another site with a beverage content or the like outside the rotation molding machine, and are also provided with a suitable seal such as a screw-type cap.